Rob

And I think there are at least some reasonable reasons to think that perhaps it's wrongheaded, at least in some cases.

So I guess first, meeting aggressive countries halfway, a country like Russia halfway, could encourage other countries to kind of engage in their own territorial conquest.

Yeah.

Second, countries of this type do tend to violate agreements whenever it's convenient.

So you might find that you negotiate in very good faith, but then you give up stuff and then you don't get very much in return in the long run.

And third, maybe the one that stands out to me the most is that there's maybe a case that the West should just cultivate a reputation for being completely immovable in the face of aggression.

even unreasonably so, completely stubbornly so, because that reputation is itself a deterrent to other countries.

So you might suffer more in this war out of all proportion to the narrow stakes, but you'll end up facing fewer wars overall if everyone expects that there's nothing to be gained by invading countries that you're friendly with.

Yeah, given all of that, I guess, why do you still prefer a pro-negotiation mentality on balance?

Last year, I interviewed Hugh White, who argued that we're overall trending towards a multipolar international order and that, for better or worse, the US should accept the reality of Russian military power, their greater resolve to fight over some neighboring countries and issues that are important to them in the near abroad.

Your work, I guess, sometimes gets lumped in with that kind of thinking.

And you've argued against that Ukraine shouldn't have been encouraged or we shouldn't have created the perception that Ukraine might join NATO in the past, for instance.

Yeah.

How is what you're proposing different than ceding Russia basically a sphere of influence in its nearby area?

Yeah.

Yeah, in that interview, Hugh White also said that he suspected that Europe would end up ceding to Russia everything that it couldn't convince them that it would be willing to fight a nuclear war to defend.

Is that exaggerated in your view, or does NATO slash the EU need to convince Russia that there are lines beyond which it really would be risking its own existence?

Yeah, I guess Hugh was, I guess, pessimistic about the chances that the U.S.

would intervene to defend the Baltic states.

But I guess there's another aspect to this, which is the risk reward for Russia.